Akali is Severely Underpowered
Okay, this is probably going to sound weird, but I do think it needs to be addressed that you can go 20/0 on an assassin that needs to snowball to contribute to your team, and yet still be outdamaged by the enemy adc with less resources or effort. Rengar, Diana, Kayn, Lucian, Jhin, Draven, etc can kill with 2-3 hits with a lead of an item or an item and a half. Akali can go 20-0, with a gunblade, lich bane, sorcs, Morello, and a fully stacked mejai and have to land: Q, EAA, E, E2, EAA, and often enough r, additional autos, and/or another q just to secure a kill. Add this to a mediocre kit: q is a short ranged small arc of a skillshot that slows if you hit the tip, which you often won't have the leisure to do. W is a ring that gives invisibility and mediocre ms, breaking if you attack, exit the area, or are cc'd, and taking a significant amount of time to restealth after any of these, plus a short duration. If your opponent isn't too lazy to buy an oracle lens, it's just about useless except bad an energy restore. If not, it's a poor defensive tool, and not great offensively either, except to wait certain abilities out. It's a poor escape tool in any open space, as an enemy will see you exit and can usually afford to wait it out at range. E is basically mark, but with more damage and a short dash, in exchange for not being untargetable. R is two dashes: a dash that does very little damage and is basically only used to reposition and proc passive(it also microstuns), and r2 does execute damage.
If you haven't caught it yet, here's the issue: Akali has very little going for her beyond damage and a degree of mobility(most of which is provided by your ult, which carries a huge chunk of your damage, and has a 100 second cooldown rank 3. Zed ult, for comparison: is an untargetable dash to a target, letting you burst them and teleport back out, that then has them explode for additional damage, on a 60 or so second cd. Not only is it up much more frequently, it also provides the option of bailing if it goes wrong, while Akali has to burn her main escape tool to secure a kill. Not only that, she actually has much less kill pressure than other assassins: Diana and Rengar basically dash to a target, drop a spell rotation on them, and walk away with 300 gold. Kayn pops ghostblade and e, pops out from a wall, and hits w-q-duskblade auto, and if that doesn't kill he has ult to: do damage, be untargetable, dash out of his target later, and reset passive, aka his damage steroid. Pyke does basically the same: ghostblade, w, e-q-aa-r, 600 gold richer. Lucian fires off an auto and 2 abilities, that's a kill. Jhin or Draven auto once or twice and drop an ability or two, that's a kill. Kha'Zix goes invisible, runs around for a bit, q-w-aa, dead. Or q-aa. Or q-aa-q. Anything really. LeBlanc dashes in, blows up her target, and teleports out. Yi runs straight at you, autos a few times and presses q, kill secured. Hecarim runs you down like Quinn, and immediately deletes you. Lux presses q-e-r, you're dead.
Akali, though, has to use her entire kit, kiting a target for a while and using all her escape tools, to do less damage over more time. Not only that, her defensive options are also inferior: W stealths you in a visible circle on the ground, so unless you exit into a bush the enemy team can and will just shoot you as you leave. E has a short dash back, but is inconsistent for dashing over walls and your main engage tool. Ult has a high CD and is also your best escape tool, so you either do basically no damage or are dead if ANYTHING happens. Hecarim can run as fast as he goes in. Kayn's ms steroid heals him, grants slow immunity, lets him walk through walls, and is on an 8 second cd. Pyke gets up to about 140% decaying ms on an ability that stealths him to let him regen with passive. Kha has another charge or two of ult to escape with, plus e, either of which can be upgraded for exactly that. Diana and Rengar can recast ult to get back out. Yi can q to dodge anything coming his way and get rid of turret aggro, and can use the ult extension to escape.
All of these champions ALSO have some sort of defensive tool, or at least something that can function as such: Hecarim has the aforementioned ms and a fear on his ult, which can be used to escape a fight. Kayn can ult for the untargetable and then use the dash and or q to get a distance away, w to slow, and or e to heal/run. Pyke has a slow on his q, a stun on his dash, a stealth that gives me, and massive healing on his passive. Kha and Rengar have healing on w and stealth on their ults, with kha having a potential slow on w, and Rengar having a slow/root on e, as well as empowered w breaking cc. Diana has a shield. Yi has a damage reduction ability that heals him, pauses his buff duration, and generates passive stacks. Akali's only defensive tool is her shroud, which is countered by: Moving out of the area, oracle lens, cc, control wards, true sight, aoe abilities, and anything with a visual effect on hit.
Akali's only survivability lies in killing enemies before they kill you, which she can't do with lackluster damage and no sustain or ability to take hits.
